Paint is sometimes used for decorating their faces and bodies in place of tattooing, but it is very ugly and disfigures both the men and women. Red, black, and white are the chief colours used, and no particular design characterises the work; the painter generally puts what his fancy suggests, and no meaning is attached to it, as is generally the case with the native markings.

The women are the workers here as elsewhere, and at basket-making and mat-plaiting they are splendid hands. Clothes used to be made by them and bartered for food to villagers on the coast. The mats are made from fibre, which in its turn is made from the pandanus leaf by cutting it into long shreds with a piece of shell and then allowing it to dry. Most of the mats have some sort of a pattern on them, and are now greatly prized by collectors. In the New Hebrides they are put on the floor of the huts, and are also used as screens to cut off the sleeping apartments from the day room. Some more artistic than others are fringed with feathers or tassels of discoloured grass. These, however, are generally made to sell to the tourist. {176}

Baskets are also manufactured in some of the islands. Pottery, however, is a forgotten art here, and a legend accounting for the number of old and broken pieces which may still be found in the bush is worth relating.

The natives believe that their islands at one time in the world’s history were brought up out of the sea by a beautiful goddess, Li Maui Tukituki; they say that when the world was quite new she was carrying home some water in jars, but, owing to the rocky state of the land she spilled the water, which made her so angry that she threw the jars at the ground and in that way punished it and made it still. From that day to this it has not moved. So tradition says, and these broken pieces of pottery are known as the water jars of Li Maui Tukituki and are held in great reverence by the natives.